There is an increasing consumer demand for meat products having a low calorie content. This demand is supported by accumulating evidence in the scientific literature that a high consumption of animal fat, especially fat with a high proportion of saturated fatty acids represents a significant health hazard, e.g. in relation to development of cardio-vascular diseases. Other health concerns associated with high-fat meat products are their high content of cholesterol and the addition of relatively high amounts of salt which are being added in order to improve the binding characteristics since salt aids in extracting the native water binding component myosin from the meat. Furthermore, a large proportion of consumers find meat products containing chemical additives such as water binding agents including phosphates, emulsifying additives, and anti-oxidants less acceptable.
However, the presence of fat in traditional meat products has a considerable desirable influence on the texture and palatability hereof. Thus meat products having a substantially reduced fat content tend to become dry, tough, and less succulent and the consumer will regard such products as being less palatable than similar products having a higher fat content. In some countries it is considered that e.g. breakfast sausages having a fat content below 35% are less palatable due to dryness and chewiness. In a recent publication by Wirth (Fleischwirtschaft, 1988,68, 1153-1156) it was concluded that a certain fat content is essential for the consistency of the products and that the preparation of meat products with a reduced fat content requires special process technology. By applying such technology it is, according to Wirth, supra possible to prepare e.g. frankfurters having a fat content as low as 10% or liver sausages with a maximum fat content of 15% without deteriorating the texture and palatability of the products. Wirth indicated that the preferred processes for compensating the technological function of the non-present fat would be: an enhanced activation of the myosin in order to enhance the water binding capacity and the addition of collagen substances and water.
There have been numerous attempts to reduce the fat content in meat products. The above publication is an example of one approach which is to simply reduce or "dilute" a high proportion of fat by adding water and water-binding enhancing agents to a high-fat product mixture. Other examples are found in GB 1 423 608 which discloses the addition of a dry gelling agent comprising a cellulose ether and a digestible carbohydrate which agent is added at concentrations up till 15% together with added water and in EP 0 319 987 which discloses a process for producing processed minced meat foods comprising adding an alkaline gel comprising up to 11 parts by weight of gel-forming materials including konjak mannan, up to 0.04 parts by weight of an alkaline substance and 15 to 50 parts by weight of water to minced meat. The use of an alkaline konjak mannan gel as a calorie-reducing agent in meat products has also been disclosed in GB 2 224 629.
An other approach to providing low calorie meat products is to reduce the amount of fat by including in the meat products non-meat ingredients while still attempting to maintain in such products a taste, flavour, texture, and appearance comparable to those of traditional high-fat meat products. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 3,748,148 discloses a method of producing sausages with a reduced content of cholesterol in which 20-30% Brazil nuts are admixed to lean meats as a substitute for animal fat. The aims of this disclosure is to provide sausages with a reduced animal fat (including cholesterol) content. The relatively high proportion of the oil-containing nuts, however, does not provide a true low fat meat product. U.S. Pat. No. 4,504,515 discloses a process for preparing low fat meat products comprising the admixture of a mixture containing 13-40% weight percent frozen skimmed milk or whole milk and 55-80% by weight of lean meat in the presence of less than 5% by weight of seasonings and/or preservatives.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,819 reduced calorie sausages comprising 40-90% of lean meat and 2-35% of cooked rice and having a fat content in the range of 4-35% by weight are disclosed. Test samples of sausages were rated on the basis of texture, flavour, and appearance by a test panel. However, the ratings were relatively poor for products having a high content of rice and a low content of fat. Accordingly, the preferred content of rice was 10% by weight and the preferred range of fat content was 10-25% by weight, the most preferred value being 20%. It is therefore obvious that these inventors have not solved the problem of being able to produce meat products with a fat content less than 20% by weight and at the same time maintaining the taste, texture, and appearance of high-fat meat products.
In a number of cases low cost meat products have been produced in which the fat is reduced moderately by the addition of various non-meat extenders. The main objectives of the use of such extenders are to aid the absorption of fat and the absorption of added water in the resulting meat product mixture in order to obtain meat products having high finishing cooking yields; adding protein value to the products; or improving the emulsion stability in products having a low meat content. As examples of such non-meat extenders may be mentioned bread crumbs, cereals, potato starch, milk powder, and vegetable protein.
The addition of dietary fiber- and starch-containing vegetable ingredients, e.g. in the form of cooked vegetables to meat products is known. It is thus not uncommon to add smaller amounts of boiled potatoes to certain traditional homemade products having a relatively high fat content, such as liver paste, sausages or forcemeat mixtures for meat balls. The purpose of this addition is primarily to obtain improved absorption of fat and added water and to reduce the cooking shrinkage. Furthermore, such addition of boiled potatoes contribute to obtaining a larger volume of the finished product whereby the required amount of the costly meat ingredient may be reduced. In GB 1 310 348 is disclosed a process for the production of dehydrated meat products such as meat balls whereby a pre-cooked dried vegetable material having retained the cellular structure of the vegetable, preferably dehydrated potatoes, is added to comminuted fat-containing meat in amounts ranging from 5 to 15 weight percent. The main purpose of adding the vegetable material is to improve the rehydration characteristics of the dried finished products. It is stated that it may be necessary to increase the inherent fat content of the products which originates from the fat-containing meat ingredient and typically being 8-13% to e.g. 20-30% by adding fat in order to reduce the time of rehydration. A similar use of carbohydrate materials such as boiled mashed potatoes in the preparation of instantly reconstitutable dehydrated, cooked meat products was disclosed in GB 1 022 170.
SU 1 266 503 describes a process for preparing cooked sausage wherein a "structurizing agent" comprising a 1:1 mixture of potato puree with milk and waste from groats manufacture is added to comminuted meat. The aims of the invention is to reduce the meat content by 35-40%. In SU 1 296 083 is disclosed a process for the preparation of sausage products wherein an emulsion comprising 8-10% by weight of a rehydrated dried vegetable material such as potatoes and other root crops and farm fat in a proportion of from 1:1 to 1:0.5 relative to the vegetable ingredient is added to comminuted meat to form a sausage mixture.
The present inventors have now found that low calorie meat products can be prepared in an industrially economical way by using meat from which essentially all attached fat has been mechanically removed and replacing the thus removed fat with a dietary fiber- and starch-containing ingredient and still obtain meat products which have essentially the same taste, consistency/texture and appearance as similar types of meat products prepared from meat having a high fat content. By using this novel process it has now been made possible to provide nutritionally highly desirable meat products having a fat content which is less than 15%, the fat content even being as low as 2-3% by weight and at the same time maintaining the same content of meat protein.